This blog discusses the historical reliability of the Bible, the creation/evolution debate and apologetics in general.

Sunday, 23 May 2010

The Earth’s Watery Origin

Genesis records that our planet had plenty of water from the beginning. Image courtesy of NASA.

Joel Kontinen

According to the naturalistic model of origins, Earth began as a dry planet and got its water as comets crashed into it.

However, recent research takes issue with this view. Maria Schönbächler at the University of Manchester, Richard Carlson of the Carnegie Institution and colleagues looked at the silver isotopes of meteorites and Earth rocks and concluded that our planet had to have water at a very early stage.

They believe that palladium-107, which has a half life of 6.5 million years, decayed into silver -107 very early in the history of our planet and that Earth got its water much earlier than previously assumed.

This study, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), was published in Science last week. Although it pays lips service to the idea of millions of years, it actually gives support to the Genesis model.

3500 years ago Moses already knew things about the Earth that scientists discovered recently. He wrote in Genesis:

”And God said, ’Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.’ And it was so. God called the dry ground ’land,’ and the gathered waters he called ’seas.’ And God saw that it was good.” (Gen. 1:9-10)

Sources:

Silver Tells a Story of Early Earth: Water Here Since Planet's Very Early Days. National Science Foundation Press Release 13 May 2010.http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=116934&org=GEO&from=news

Water Was Present During Birth of Earth, Study of Silver Suggests. ScienceDaily 14 May 2010.http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/05/100513143457.htm